This invention relates to the construction of a cabana or housing used for portable outdoor-type toilets. Such portable toilet cabanas are conventionally formed of thin, plastic sheets which are connected together, edge to edge, to form the housing enclosure. A doorway is formed at the front of the enclosure and a suitable door is hingedly connected over the doorway. Typically, a waste holding tank with a toilet construction are arranged within the enclosure. A plastic cover or roof extends over the top of the cabana and is connected to the upper edges of the walls.
The details and the arrangements of the parts forming the cabana in past constructions have been varied. However, examples of such types of cabanas or toilet housings are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,447,167 issued Jun. 3, 1969 to David B. Harding for a "Portable Toilet Cabana"; U.S. Pat. No. 3,835,480, issued Sep. 17, 1974 to George W. Harding for a "Chemical Toilet Cabana"; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,572 issued Jun. 28, 1977, to George W. Harding for a "Chemical Toilet Cabana Shell Section." In these cabanas, the walls were made either of multiple sections that were assembled together or of large plastic sheets that were molded to form the wall shapes.
The use of large molded plastic panels formed of plastic sheets is illustrated, by way of example, in U.S. Pat. No. 248,775 issued Aug. 1, 1978 to Clarence Brown for a "Portable Sanitation Unit"; U.S. Pat. No. 250,350 issued Nov. 21, 1978 to Frank T. Sargent for a "Portable Toilet Building," U.S. Pat. No. 349,578 issued Aug. 9, 1994 to Richard L. Tagg for a "Portable Toilet" and U.S. Pat. No. 304,082 issued Oct. 17, 1989 to George W. Harding for an "Outdoor Toilet Cabana." While these patents relate to the design or appearance of toilet cabanas, they generally illustrate utilizing large wall panels joined together to form cabana or housing enclosures.
Since large panels formed of plastic sheet material are inherently somewhat resilient or flexible, they tend to absorb impact forces that may be applied during transportation of the cabanas. However, securing such large panels together, to form an overall rigid housing, is a problem. One form of previously used connections between adjacent cabana walls involved bending the vertical free edges of the walls into angled wall edge sections which terminated in flanges. The adjacent flanges along the edges of the wall panels have been angled so as to arrange such flanges in face-to-face relationship and at an angle relative to the panels. In other words, the vertical, adjacent free edge flanges have been arranged in planes which were angled relative to the planes of their respective wall panels. The connected flanges formed rigid, vertically extending strips at the corners of the cabana. While this form of construction is satisfactory for fastening the wall panels together and for rigidifying the housing or cabana, it does require fairly accurate dimensions for the parts. Only small variations or tolerances in dimensions can be permitted for proper assembly of the wall parts. Since such wall panels are large in height and width and may be formed with numerous indentations or bends for decorative and strength purposes, making the panel dimensions accurately is difficult and presents manufacturing problems.
Examples of this type of panel corner connection are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,577,351 issued Mar. 25, 1986 to George W. Harding for a "Portable Toilet Cabana"; U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,671 issued May 23, 1989 to George W. Harding for a "Portable Toilet Cabana" and U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,765 issued Apr. 24, 1990 to George W. Harding for a "Portable Toilet Cabana." In each of these disclosures, the edges of the wall panels are bent into strip-like flanges that are arranged in a plane which is roughly 45 degrees to the planes of their respective wall panels. These flanges are connected together to form multi-layer, vertical joints which also provide a column-like construction for rigidifying the cabana. However, the dimensions of the parts must be accurate in order to facilitate assembly of the cabana.
Thus, this present invention relates to an improved system for joining together the major components of an outdoor toilet cabana, that is, the walls and root, which system permits considerable variation in the sizes of the individual components while still providing a rigid and an accurately dimensioned overall cabana construction. Further, disclosures of preferred embodiments of this invention are found in co-pending applications, U.S. Ser. No. 8/380,683, filed Jan. 30, 1995 (Attorney Docket No. 6823-00026) and U.S. Ser. No. 08/380,681, filed Jan. 30, 1995 (Attorney Docket No. 6823-00027) which disclosures are incorporated herein by reference.